Guild Wars 2

I’m a bit conflicted about the update myself.

On the one hand, I enjoyed the thrill of the difficulty. A successful run truly felt like an achievement. It wasn’t impossible by any stretch. you just needed everybody on the same page. The “high DPS, pay attention” page. but once you got that organization together, it was beautiful.

On the other hand, my complaint is in essence that more people get to do the event successfully and more frequently. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. I’ve been on enough pug runs to know that getting a successful kill out of randoms was incredibly tough, and now more people get to do it.

The real question I have is this: It that O.K.? My general experience with randoms is that they are hard because they are undergeared, poorly built, and don’t listen. I’ve been lobbying for a general increase in difficulty because faceroll easy is boring and doesn’t hold interest. King of the Jungle was one of those events. You had to try to beat it.

Followers still exist. The TD meta is now accessible to more players. Everybody wins.

oh serious now? just shut it. first “it’s too hard, tone it down”, now “it’s too easy” when they answer the demand. There’s something called Raid if people want to try something challenging. DS was tough, virtually impossble, at first, now people learning it and it rarely failed. If DS rarely fails, why TD should be any more challenging. TD was extremely tough and you really have to have organized guild people doing it with a good map to finish it, thus people generally never bother spending time.

Let’s be realistic, no matter how the devs try to find the right balance this content is going to be too easy or too difficult for some players.

As it stands, there’s far more people who can appreciate ‘faceroll’ than ‘facemelting’ difficulty.

The former guarantees multiple successful maps, and a good time by most (Silverwastes, for example). The latter usually results in everyone struggling to get into one or two organized instances, and abandoning a map at the slightest hiccup. Not to mention frequent bickering, trolling and rage. The satisfaction gained from beating the odds doesn’t really make up for the other crap, imo.

There is “casual” stuff gated behind this meta and the difficulty did not fit into the game at all. It was a lot harder than the actual endboss.
If they want to do challenging open world events, then they should simply make them independend, like Triple Trouble. Oh, no one likes to play Triple Trouble? Too bad.

If you want a challenge, go for raids.

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

There is also the new legendary armor which is stuck behind raids. I love that raids are difficult, I have managed to down the first boss and have fun running it for hours. What I don’t like is the only way to obtain Legendary Armor is by completing Raids (for now at least) which are designed to be super difficult and for more hardcore players. Why can’t there be a more casual way to obtain the same armor? Most people would say it’s only really needed in Raiding where you have to change build often (which is wrong other areas would like this too). It’s a piece of content that a majority of GW2 players would love to obtain, reason doesn’t matter, that got put behind content designed for hardcore players.

Funnily enough, my opinion is that raiders actually need legendary armor the least. One of the stated goal of raiders is they love the gear grind. That chase for the best equipment. Legendary armor stops that gear grind. It’s a very ironic end reward.

Raziel.4216:

Old post from maddoctor comparing the Gw1 & Gw2 expansions.

That comparision is not well done. For example the comparision of “exploration stuff”: you can compare the amount of maps. But you can’t take dungeons entrances and compare them with POIs. Landmarks are afaik also no official term in GW1. For example HoT’s “the falls” are also in GW Prophecies. Without any “POI”. It’s the same location. Maybe its also a landmark, idk. Every tree could be defined as a landmark.

Hero challenges are mostly small bossfights. But he didn’t tried to count all bosses spreaded around EoTN which you needed to kill to gain their eliteskills.
He counts waypoints but doesn’t count “rezzshrines” (the places where you would be revived when your party wiped, similar to waypoints).
He even compares traits to skills. Some traits add a new functionality, so he is right for these traits (for example the trait switching guardians F1-3 into new ones), but faster trap reloading? More damage when X? Thats not a new skill.
GW1 also offers items which increase the duration of buffs, do more damage when your health is above 50%, reload skills faster, reduce casting time, increase armour etc. Nobody would count these items as new skills.

I think a fair comparision is very difficult.
Point is: its about the feeling. Does the player got the feeling of “i’ve seen everything” and how long does it take till he feels so. HoT has very little content variety and goes more into the depth. Good for people who are farming AP or love repeating open world events. Bad for people who just want to explore. They might be done with HoT after a weekend or two.

Dahkeus.8243:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Ah Factions… the campaign that GW1 players either loved, or hated. There never seemed to be any middle ground for those one. Personally, I think it was my favorite, despite its flaws.

I’m not sure this was my favorite expansion back when I played GW1, but it’s the one I’m most tempted to go back to now. Sadly, I rolled an Assassin and Vizunah Square is pretty much a wall to progression as this is near impossible to do with nothing but henchmen (I don’t have hardly any heroes since my old account got hijacked and the player population is…sparse).

Urgoz’s Warden and the Deep were also some of the most fun high-end content I think GW1 ever had…

/nostalgiatrip

Ouch fodder… I mean Assassin. Although, I didnt have too much of an issue with hench when I did it “back in the day” Though, yeah, heroes definitely make it easier. If you decide to go back and play through it, drop me a pm on here regarding when, I’d be more than happy to lend a hand if I’m free.

I think I preferred FoW and UW over the Deep. Urgoz was fun though. It was just so kitten hard to get enough people…

Ah Factions… the campaign that GW1 players either loved, or hated. There never seemed to be any middle ground for those one. Personally, I think it was my favorite, despite its flaws.

Would love to have an update on this as guild halls and exp are pretty much a core facet of the game that effects many players.

As there’s a bunch of guilds having this issue at least an idea would be nice:

· Should we stop upgrading our guild halls until this one is fixed?
· What about Aethrium overflow in the meantime?
· Is this an erroneous display or do our guilds still have their levelup?
· If not, will it be granted after fixing this issue?

Cheers..

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

Oh, who cares anyway? This fact only gives more credit to how superior Factions as an expansion (yeah yeah, “standalone campaign”) was compared to HOT.

Welcome to the human race.

Toxicity in any game has nothing to do with the game itself, it is just the nature of some to be toxic when they don’t get their own way. Mix that mentality with the anonymity provided by the internet and it is always going to be a recipe for toxic behaviour. This is not GW2’s fault.

That said, there are certain conditions where these kinds of people thrive, and therefore you will find some games, or some areas of a game, will have more of these kinds of people than others. For example, PvP tends to have more toxic players than PvE, due to the competitive and adreneline filled nature of it. But wherever there is a challenge that can be completed faster, by playing a specific way, there will always be the impatient, arrogant and emotionally immature few that scream and shout and try to spoil everyone else’s game for their own gains. Not all players are like this of course, but the toxic players are often the loudest and most visible among us. I guess they think it makes them look big and important, kind of like how animals puff themselves up or colour themselves brightly to warn others that they are dangerous, when in reality they are the complete opposite.

At the end of the day, if someone is being abusive to you, report them. It is not worth getting yourself stressed over, and they certainly do not deserve your time.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/shrug

They’ve done this sort of thing for a long time now, dating back to Guild Wars 1. For whatever reason they want some holiday rewards to be out of the reach of most people and since its baked into their reward philosophy then asking for a change is wasting time.

Wintersday 2007: Mini Polar Bear. Drop rate chance from Wintersday Chest is 0.02%. Wintersday Grab Bag, maybe 0.2% (if I remember correctly you could get 2 Grab Bags per account per year)

By Mini Polar Bear standards of access, they are handing out these shoulders to everyone who wants one.

Oh dear gods….I remember farming for that bear. Oh the pain…. the agony. Still don’t have one.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I can understand some things being exclusive. Necessary evil, I suppose. Tribulation mode SAB skins are a good example, imo. Anet made a comment around roughly that point that they didn’t necessarily want everyone to have everything; which I can understand.

I don’t particularly feel festival items/rewards should fall into that boat though. There’s a difference between being able to get it quickly, vs having to work towards it over an extended period of time, vs just not being able to do it at all.

/shrug

They’ve done this sort of thing for a long time now, dating back to Guild Wars 1. For whatever reason they want some holiday rewards to be out of the reach of most people and since its baked into their reward philosophy then asking for a change is wasting time.

Wintersday 2007: Mini Polar Bear. Drop rate chance from Wintersday Chest is 0.02%. Wintersday Grab Bag, maybe 0.2% (if I remember correctly you could get 2 Grab Bags per account per year)

By Mini Polar Bear standards of access, they are handing out these shoulders to everyone who wants one.

I think the biggest thing ANet needs to clarify now is:

a) How long will Wintersday be here for? This gives us the ability to plan ahead and see if we can farm the drinks ourselves, or have to buy it.

b) Will the ability to progress the collection be available even after Wintersday? The ones tied to the Wintersday mini-games are obviously going to be gone, but drinks can be acquired all year round thanks to our personal Gift Trees. If the achievement becomes locked after a couple of weeks, that puts TREMENDOUS pressure on people who want the skin.

Ragnarox.9601:

I’ll click if Anet buys me new 70$ gaming mouse after that clicking.

right click > consume all ?

or is it left click? shrug

I can understand some things being exclusive. Necessary evil, I suppose. Tribulation mode SAB skins are a good example, imo. Anet made a comment around roughly that point that they didn’t necessarily want everyone to have everything; which I can understand.

I don’t particularly feel festival items/rewards should fall into that boat though. There’s a difference between being able to get it quickly, vs having to work towards it over an extended period of time, vs just not being able to do it at all.

… sell your booze. Consider the gold infusion your holiday gift/reward. They are selling for 8s and you can get 2 of them from each gift. The gold/hour from every holiday source is very good.

Want nice and easy relaxed pve content? Play the Infinarium for 50 gifts a run.
Have good rhythm or piano skills? Turn your keyboard into a piano and ring some bells.
Enjoy jumping but don’t want to grind out 10k drinks? Run the JP for sweet profits.
The snowball fighting is fun too, though it seems much less rewarding.

This is Guild Wars 2, if you don’t like any particular content, you can go play something else. Items that give you an aura require work, or a ton of cash. People need to stop expecting them to be easy.

Personally I think this collection is way better than Nightfury. Instead of having the price tied to a rare holiday bag drop plus a massive amount of a common HoT resource, it’s tied directly to the most common holiday bag drop. This causes every bag to have value and will be a nice gold infusion for people who decide not to go for the collection.

It’s a game man, everyone should have everything and skill, dedication and competence shouldn’t even matter because it’s a game man.

The pixels themselves don’t matter – but they’re a visual indicator of what you achieved. They say something about the way you play, how skilled, dedicated, competent you are.

I’ll give you an example – if you see someone with a Liadri Miniature you’ll know that said person has a decently high skill level since he was able to beat Liadri.

If skins and skin rarity don’t matter why is CS:GO making absurd amounts of money off rare skins? Same as Dota 2, same as LoL.

Skin rarity matters – if everyone had access to all skins then rarity would disappear.

Tigaseye.2047:

Now, the elitists have had their dodgy positions on things confirmed and reinforced by the devs, so there will be no stopping them.

I like how you make things up – “dodgy position” – you’re saying my choices on how I play and whom I choose to play with are “dodgy”?
That they matter less than yours? a non-elitist?.

Tigaseye.2047:

I, specifically, mean people who look down upon others and like the idea of people, who they view as less worthy, getting nothing in the game.

I like your strawman – nobody said anything about less skilled player getting nothing. They can get a lot of things as far as I’m concerned – all I want is that the high-skill rewards remain high skill and people that have them should have earned them.

I by no means want less skilled players getting “nothing” but I don’t want them having all the prestige skins, titles and rewards either. And Anet has allowed a lot of room for them to eventually get those rewards.

Look at Magnetite Shards – fail a lot – get lots of shards – and buy the reward you want from the vendor.
Is it easy? No. Is it attainable? Yes – because you don’t really have to succeed consistently to get it. Some effort is required though as you still have to at least kill the bosses once – so in my book it’s a good middle ground.
Plus some of the items (Infusions) you can get off the TP.

Tigaseye.2047:

While they get everything.

I’m sorry did I get anything in this game without playing? Did high-end skill-based rewards suddenly pop in a daily log-in chest?

I work for the stuff I get in game – if the stuff’s harder to get I work harder and get better. So should everybody else.

Tigaseye.2047:

By siding, almost entirely, with people like that, this xpac, Anet have made an interesting choice, to say the least.

Except Anet has kept a balanced middle ground – the are ways for even the most casual and unskilled player to get to what he wants provided he is at least motivated and determined to do it.

Tigaseye.2047:

Toxicity is being toxic to, or about, other people.

Because criticism is “toxic now” and everyone is special so we can’t ever complain about something another player does.

Tigaseye.2047:

Of course the core game is still there, but the core game is not HoT and no one would, knowingly, pay anything up to $100 to continue to play 3 year old content that they can continue to play for free.

HoT was heavily marketed as being more difficult. They promised more difficult content with HoT more times than I can remember.
Raids were promised with HoT. Beta weekend events filled the forums with posts of “mobs are now harder”.

Can you honestly say the fact that HoT is “harder” than core GW2 just came out of nowhere and surprised people? I honestly can’t.

Plus – as another poster on these forums told me when I complained about HoT ( for different reasons – lack of content) nobody forced you to preorder – and we all know what risks preordering comes with.

You paid for an expansion and got new maps, new elite specs, new weapons and armour, a new game mode for PvP, a new borderlands, guild hall stuff, etc, etc, etc.. You paid for content and in my opinion the content given was worth the price tag.

Now they add more stuff in the gem store, because you know, its a business and they need to make money to: pay wages, pay for equipment and server upkeep, pay for building and general business running costs, pay for marketing costs, pay for future development costs, and err… oh yeah, make a profit. None of the items added to the gem store give you an advantage and therefore none of the gem store items are required. They are cosmetic or QoL improvements, nothing more.

People are complaining because they cannot get the nice shiny thing in game, but Anet has given you the option to buy it with in game gold (something not many MMOs do). There are in game rewards for doing stuff in game, but they need to keep a revenue stream going so add more skins via the store. This is nothing new and Anet are not adding anything that is game breaking, unlike some games I know.

All it boils down to is you can’t get it for free, or for little effort, so you complain about it. And for those who want to earn it, there is nothing stopping you from doing that. You can do whatever you want to get the gold to convert to gems. You DO have the option to get the gem store items for free.

The BL chest gambling is not something I agree with, as I do not think it right to put real money gambling in any game (I guess because you can buy keys with in game gold they feel they can get away with it, but I still think it is not morally right to encourage it) and I was not happy about the sniper bundle not giving you the choice to buy the items seperately, but in general the gem store is ok in my opinion.

All I want to know is that is it really time gated? I don’t have the time to grind the drinks, I would if I had, nor do I have the gold at the moment to buy them. Holidays are coming you know.

Basically, I would be willing to work for the shoulder skins but at the moment I simply can’t. I would be okay if the amount of drinks stacked to for example, next years Wintersday event. That way my work wouldn’t be wasted if I plan to start working on the shoulders.

Artanis.4963:

As such, if you fail to consume all ten thousand drinks in the allotted time (at least two weeks, most likely four, and hope it’s more), you will fail to complete the collection.

I need to correct you a bit here:
You will fail to complete the collection this year.
This whole achievement is obviously a GW2 version of the GW1 drunkard title. You needed 10k points in GW1 too and most alcohol only dropped during holiday events.
I’m 10.000% sure that the points won’t reset for next wintersday, as they didn’t in GW1. You absolutely don’t need to aquire 10k points this year. If you really want the shoulder skin, you can grind the presents or buy alcohol, but you don’t have to.

RoRo.8270:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Why do so many people have an issue with this? All I can say is “About kitten time!”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Drunkard

That title is easy mode now that you can spam drinks

LOL “easy mode” is such a fatuously over-used word, this being a great example.

IT NEVER WAS HARD!

Stop confusing ‘time taken’ with ‘difficulty’!

You don’t have to drink all of them during Wintersday. It’s a collection achievement, not a festival one. And who knows, maybe as more people come on and decide the achievement’s hopeless/they’d rather make money, or after the festival’s done and people can’t start the collection anymore until next year, the booze will be a bit more affordable.

Becka Williams.4978:

Wear white gear. There, challenge mode engaged!

^ This. I always have to shake my head a little at people demanding tougher content. If something’s too easy for you, there are lots of ways you can handicap yourself to make it tougher. Fight Lupicus naked. Play Ranked without using any of your utility slots or elite skill. Do the raid with 5 people. These, I feel, demonstrate your “skill” far better than a designed encounter that’s been built with a specific solution (whether through tactics or gear) in mind. Break the box by designing your own solution. THAT’S the true mark of a Master.

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s what a lot of people wanted. Another faceroll meta.

It’s better than hardcore Meta that 99% of the community ignore. (TT rings the bell)

Too bad HoT only has 4 maps, so if you make 1 map’s Meta undoable, it’d take 25% of the content away, which is not smart at all.

Guys. Nightfury was hundreds of times worse than this. The ONLY costly part is the drinks. Just about every component of nightfury was costing in the hundreds of gold. And think about it- what kind of “special” item would it be if just about every player in the game could get it? You don’t HAVE to get it- heck, I don’t even really care about it because I don’t feel like having no shoulder skin.